Main > Main Forum

So USB or PS/2?

Pages: << < (2/8) > >>

AndyWarne:


--- Quote from: kruluk on February 01, 2009, 12:02:40 pm ---
Also I am not really understanding the difference in setting up a PS/2 IPac or a USB IPac is one easier than the other? People say USB won't work in DOS? Does that mean if you want to use USB you have to use Mame32 and can't use the command line version? Does that also mean that the USB version would not work in MameWah? Be cause isn't MameWah running in DOS?


--- End quote ---

The command-line version of Mame does not run in DOS. I think you are confusing "Windows Command Line" with DOS. This is not DOS.
DOS is not practical on modern hardware for all kinds of reasons, best not to use it because you are likely to end up with a machine which is slow, with choppy video and sound (or no sound at all on many motherboards which dont have any DOS sound drivers). Video will not be accelerated, no D3D, no stretch.

So USB can be used on all practical Mame installations. PS/2 cant always be used as it has been dropped by all the big-name manufacturers although many motherboards still have PS/2 ports.

AndyWarne:


--- Quote from: FrontyDev on February 01, 2009, 04:11:02 pm ---
--- Quote from: kruluk on February 01, 2009, 12:02:40 pm --- :dunno I really have tried reading about this stuff but it seems like every article I read simply assumes you understand what they mean by the USB and PS/2 and that is like a different language to me  :'( But I am trying to learn!  ;D
--- End quote ---
Basically if you go with PS/2 then your computer will see your joysticks and buttons as one glorified keyboard. E.g. press a button and your computer sees it as if you were pressing a key on the keyboard.

With USB your computer will see your joysticks and buttons as an gamepad with lots (and I mean lots) of buttons. You press a button and your computer sees it as exactly that (a gamepad button).

There are deeper technical differences which you can search the forums. Basically PS/2 has a limit of simultaneous keypresses which keyboard encoders circumvent in their own way. USB encoders don't have this problem and benefit from being recognized as gaming devices.



--- End quote ---

Ummm.... Unfortunately the above information is pretty much all incorrect...not sure where to start really, its just, well, all wrong..

Jack Burton:

To start with, USB keyboards aren't gamepads, they're keyboards. 

CheffoJeffo:

I think that FrontyDev is confusing USB and PS/2 with keyboard encoders and gamepad encoders.

As far as the simultaneous keypress issue goes, here is my recollection as posted in a recent thread on the subject:


--- Quote from: CheffoJeffo on January 17, 2009, 08:53:48 am ---USB keyboards have a maximum of 6 simultaneous keypresses (plus modifier keys -- Ctrl, Alt and Shift).

Last I heard, in USB mode, the IPac has a maximum of 16 simultaneous keypresses (plus modifier keys).

USB gamepads have a maximum of 64 simultaneous inputs.

NOTE: The above is my recollection based on the "Great USB vs PS/2 and Keyboard vs Gamepad ThreadWars of 2005"(tm)

For more info, I refer the ambitious reader to TigerHeli's Arcade Interfaces Page, which includes technical discussions by the major participants of said ThreadWars.

--- End quote ---


AcidArmitage:

who presses that many keys!


but yea.. the Ipac will alwaysbe seen as a keyboard... and the GPwiz will be seen as a gamepad (and then can be converted to keypresses with joy2key)


ANYWAYS just go with USB... its easier for everybodyyyyy  :afro:


Edit:woops

Pages: << < (2/8) > >>

Go to full version